The Hoard Potato: How To Train your Dragon
Yesterday, quelonzia and I went to see How to Train Your Dragon.
Magnificent.
I enjoyed it almost as much as I did Kung Fu Panda, and, in fact, if we hadn't seen it in 3D, I probably would have enjoyed it more than KFP-I mean, dragons, right? Alas, I find wearing 3D glasses over my regular glasses to be too distracting for the movie to pull me in quite as much. 3D was an interesting novelty with Coraline and Up, but until I can get prescription 3D lenses, I think I'm going to opt out from here on in.
That small technical issue aside, I loved this movie.
I have to agree with the consensus: between this and Kung Fu Panda, Dreamworks is finally making Pixar-quality movies, rather than just snarky, derivative flicks full "hip" jokes that audiences 20 years from now will need a reference book* to understand.
Let me be clear: How To Train Your Dragon is definitely Pixar quality, without being Pixar-style-and I don't just mean the animation, either. It's as well-paced, as well-written, and it has characters of the same depth and charisma as a Pixar flick.
But it has a completely different feel to it.
Dreamworks has found its ecological niche, and it's not the same niche as Pixar's.
One nice character touch that nobody else has really noted: it would have been very, very easy to present the other Vikings as flat-out stupid and mean. Dreamworks didn't go that route, and my hat's off to them. The vikings are loud, boisterous and coarse, and they have very little patience with things that they don't see as having immediate, practical value-but they aren't stupid. They are smart, savvy, capable professionals who have focused their abilities on a destructive and ultimately-pointless course of action, because they believe it's the only way they can survive.
I'd add more, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.
* Okay, realistically, they'll be clicking on the Clifflinks™ on the hyperlinked video file, but you know what I mean.
Magnificent.
I enjoyed it almost as much as I did Kung Fu Panda, and, in fact, if we hadn't seen it in 3D, I probably would have enjoyed it more than KFP-I mean, dragons, right? Alas, I find wearing 3D glasses over my regular glasses to be too distracting for the movie to pull me in quite as much. 3D was an interesting novelty with Coraline and Up, but until I can get prescription 3D lenses, I think I'm going to opt out from here on in.
That small technical issue aside, I loved this movie.
I have to agree with the consensus: between this and Kung Fu Panda, Dreamworks is finally making Pixar-quality movies, rather than just snarky, derivative flicks full "hip" jokes that audiences 20 years from now will need a reference book* to understand.
Let me be clear: How To Train Your Dragon is definitely Pixar quality, without being Pixar-style-and I don't just mean the animation, either. It's as well-paced, as well-written, and it has characters of the same depth and charisma as a Pixar flick.
But it has a completely different feel to it.
Dreamworks has found its ecological niche, and it's not the same niche as Pixar's.
One nice character touch that nobody else has really noted: it would have been very, very easy to present the other Vikings as flat-out stupid and mean. Dreamworks didn't go that route, and my hat's off to them. The vikings are loud, boisterous and coarse, and they have very little patience with things that they don't see as having immediate, practical value-but they aren't stupid. They are smart, savvy, capable professionals who have focused their abilities on a destructive and ultimately-pointless course of action, because they believe it's the only way they can survive.
I'd add more, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.
* Okay, realistically, they'll be clicking on the Clifflinks™ on the hyperlinked video file, but you know what I mean.